February of this year saw the reissue of two of award-winning, North Carolina poet Jeffery Beam’s collections: the aptly-titled Midwinter Fires and the gloriously minimalist  MountSeaEden. Originally published in 1990 by French Broad Press, Midwinter Fires is a skillfully-woven tapestry of emotions that fully lives up to the ReBound series’ claim to select:-

“..outstanding out-of-print chapbooks for publication.” (more…)

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Alexandra Singer’s new book Tea at the Grand Tazi, is a dervish of underground secrets and a story full of twists and turns that take you through the rough streets of Morocco, a place where few people dare to leave the main drag. The journey unfolds as Maia is referred to an old colleague of her professor and winds up staying at the once glorious Grand Tazi hotel. Maia wants to be an artist, as she wanders the hustling streets she is determined to paint the women of a culture that so often mistreats them as commodities rather than people. As Maia begins her trials with getting close to these women, she finds herself sucked into the secret life of her boss, as well as the expatriates who frequent the Grand Tazi. After various journeys and multiple discoveries, Maia learns that the chance of escape from the world can sometimes lead to anything but freedom. (more…)

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The Last Man
R.L. Swihart
Kanev Books; March 20, 2012

I am in the habit of agreeing to time consuming tasks that I don’t really have time to complete. The Last Man is one of my recent over extensions but it is also a reminder of why I say yes to most anything written, because if I say no, I might just miss a writer like this. The Last Man is an instinctively, compulsively collection of works. What R L Swihart presents readers is stark raving madness; it is also a bit brilliant. The poems in this collection are at once nonsense and prophesy.
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The linguist at play…

Compendium/by Kristina Marie Darling/Cow Heavy Books

Kristina Marie Darling compends. She expouts. She uses palimpsest . She goes back and forth covering you compiling these stories.

In Compendium from Cow Heavy Books (2011), Darling uses simple stated facts throughout her fiction to bring the reader through the tale then feet flat on the ground, running.  (more…)

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I had the pleasure of recently attending a book launch in Dublin in The Winding Stair, an independent bookshop where books were hung like wind chimes or dream-catchers in the window, exceptional for its picture-window view of one of the capital city’s most attractive landmarks, the Ha’penny Bridge.  Garlanded with icicle-blue Christmas lights, the view stretched over the dark waters of the Liffey, reflecting the festive lights back at us on the double, while inside the store it was warm and companionable with red wine flowing freely; the air rose with the melodies of flute and harp in accompaniment to a poet’s reading.  It was one of those evenings where people say, ‘You should have been there’.  It was a brief reading but one that would leave you with a desire to read more.  They say good wines don’t travel, that ambience is inseparable from the experience – but Michèle Vassal’s A Taste for Hemlock is one of those rare exceptions. (more…)

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